Fairland, Gauteng

Fairland Fairland
Fairland  Fairland shown within Gauteng
Location within Greater Johannesburg  Fairland
Coordinates: 26°7′44″S 27°56′45″E / 26.12889°S 27.94583°E / -26.12889; 27.94583Coordinates: 26°7′44″S 27°56′45″E / 26.12889°S 27.94583°E / -26.12889; 27.94583
Country	South Africa
Province	Gauteng
District	D10
Municipality	City of Johannesburg
Main Place	Randburg
Area[1]
• Total	5.29 km2 (2.04 sq mi)
Population (2011)[1]
• Total	9,127
• Density	1,700/km2 (4,500/sq mi)
Racial makeup (2011)[1]
• Black African	22.0%
• Coloured	3.4%
• Indian/Asian	6.3%
• White	67.0%
• Other	1.3%
First languages (2011)[1]
• English	55.8%
• Afrikaans	27.9%
• Zulu	3.3%
• Tswana	2.6%
• Other	10.3%
Postal code (street)	2170
PO box	2030

Fairland is a residential suburb in northern Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. The area is neighboured by Northcliff, Cresta and Darrenwood and is one of the most leafy suburbs in the city. Fairland was developed on land that was originally a farm called Weltevreden. Statistics indicate that Fairland has some of the lowest crime statistics within Johannesburg..

History

History of Fairland

THE STORY OF FAIRLAND

When I was a child – and I’m seventy now – we sometimes walked over Louw Geldenhuys’s farm from Parkview, and picnicked on the top of Aasvoel Kop. In those days, the whole ridge of koppies from Aasvoel Kop to where Quellerina is now, was one long succession of low walls built of loosely packed stone. Some of these were nearly a meter high. The old people of Fairland used to say the Matabele had lived here, and very likely they had, but the walls were built long, long before that. An Iron Age forge had been excavated on Melville Koppie, while the remains of the Stone Age village just above Cliffside Terrace have been radio-carbon-dated as fifty thousand years old! This site is now being criminally threatened with demolition by property developers and there is a struggle afoot to put a stop to what would be the most tragic desecration of an historic site.

In any case, the area surrounding Cliffview School has been inhabited by men, women and children for a considerable time!

The school stands on the farm Weltevreden of which D P Badenhorst was the original owner. His land stretched from the spruit that runs through Fairland as far as today’s D F Malan Drive. Eventually he sold it to his cousin, H J J Badenhorst. The latter’s granddaughter, Mrs. Joey van Niekerk, is still living in the area.

In 1871 C J Smit bought from D P Badenhorst, the portion of Weltevreden from Fairland Spruit to Little Falls. As early as 1896 there was already talk of laying out a township on this land. When C J Smit died, the farm was divided between his three children. This was before the end of the nineteenth century and these heirs had already decided to lay out a township.

After the Anglo-Boer War, Cornelis, the son of C J Smit, suggested that the eastern part of his heritage, about 500 morgen, be laid out as a model village. Robert Willson, the land-surveyor, told Cornelis Smit that his scheme would probably put £10 000 in his pocket – an enormous amount for those days. There were 949 one-acre stands in the township. Robert Willson named the streets after members of the Smit family – Smit Street after C J Smit ; Cornelis after his son ; Johannes after Cornelis’s son; Casper after Cornelis’s youngest brother-in-law Casper Erasmus. ? after his youngest daughter and Sophia after his sister-in-law, Sophia Cronje.

In payment for his survey, Robert Willson was given 29 morgen of land, enclosed by Ninth Avenue and King Street, and Johannes Street and the Fairland Spruit. This was known as Willson Estate. He sold this area to Thomas Brink, whose wife was a Cruywagen. Her father was the great-grandfather of Riaan Cruywagen, the TV personality. The agricultural holdings along the Fairland Spruit were bought by the farmers on the surrounding farms. After this they were unable to sell any more stands, probably because in those days Fairland was so very far out of Johannesburg.

In 1908 the township was sold to Isaac Barnard Cohen, who made the agency over to Arthur Walker. On the same date, Arthur Walker made it over to the Realty Corporation of South Africa. Robert Willson suggested that should call the township ‘Fairland’. He called some of the new streets after members of the Corporation. One was Davidson and another Kessel – Kessel was a friend of Robert Willson’s. King Street was called after Mrs Willson who maiden name was King.

The Realty Corporation made a map of Fairland and sent an agent travelling all over the country, selling stands at €100 each. Oom Freek Wolfaardt, who lived on one of the agricultural holdings on the spruit at the top of Willson Street, on the present site of Cliffview School, was in charge of the sales in Fairland. Every month the Corporation’s agent came driving out from Johannesburg over the roughest of wagon-tracks, in his landau, to see what Oom Freek had sold. Opposite Oom Freek lived Oom Ludwig Koch, whose wife was a sister of Mrs. Wolfaardt.

Here are some of the names of early farmers in Weltevreden : Melt Stander, Cornelis Smit, H J J Badenhorst, and later Mr. Herder, Mr Sieling, Mr Toxopeus, Mr Hogeboozem, Mr. Erasmus. Melt Stander’s father, Oom Hendrik and his wife, Malie, bought a stand in Willson Street above 14th Avenue. He was a son of Adriaan Stander, founder of Standerton. Oom Hendrik’s mother-in-law, Catharina Gouws also bought a stand and lived nearby. She was the daughter of Hans Dons, famous Voortrekker leader, whose name was really De Lange. Everyone called her Ouma Grootjie. At twenty-one she had been a midwife in the Barberton area, riding over the mountains to her patients on horseback. She came to the mining camp, Johannesburg, carried on with her work and continued to nurse the sick even as an elderly widow in Fairland. She was much-loved. Great-great-grandchildren of hers still attend Fairland School. Her grave is in the little cemetery at the end of Willson Street, in Still Street and on the headstone we read that she was a “Voortrekkerkind”.

H.J.J. Badenhorst gave his name to Badenhorst Street in Northcliff. In his day, Weltevreden belonged to the Pretoria congregation and he was an elder of the Bosmankerk in Church Street, Pretoria, where President Kruger worshipped. His wife was Tant Alida, known as Tant Alie, and Alida Street, Northcliff is named after her.

After the First Anglo-Boer War in 1881, Oupa Badenhorst engaged an ex-soldier from the British army called Smailes as school-master for his children. Mr. Smailes know no Afrikaans and so the children were taught in English. The schoolmaster had an odd liking for thunderstorms and used to indulge in the dangerous practice of sitting up on the koppie-crest to watch the lightning play along the ridges. A little black girl called Maria also attended the lessons.

Maria was the child of a maid of Ouma Badenhorst’s. When she was two years old, the Badenhorst family all went off to Nagmaal in Pretoria. They travelled by ox-wagon in two shifts. When they outspanned after the first shift, the small Maria came creeping out from under the wagon bed, where she had been hidden by her mother. So they took her with them Pretoria, where they stayed with Ouma Badenhorst’s mother. When they returned to their home on Weltevreden Farm, Maria’s mother had disappeared. They accordingly kept Maria and brought her up as a child in their home.

Maria was grown up when Oupa Badenhorst went off hunting in the Northern Transvaal. One day he came a across a very sick black man, lying under a tree. Oupa doctored him and cared for him until he was well. The man, Petrus Matau, began working around the camp and when Oupa went home, he insisted on accompanying him. Petrus Matau married Maria. Mrs Joe van Niekerk knew the couple well as very old people. Old Petrus had worked for her father, Melt Stander, when he was farming. Only ten years ago the descendants of Petrus and Marie Matau left Weltevreden to live in Soweto. “Maar hulle kom nog kuier”, says Mrs van Niekerk, who now lives in Melanie Avenue.

When Ouma Badenhorst was bout 40, someone had given her five little wattle trees while she was on a visit to Pretoria. She tended them with loving care, but only three survived. In later years, Maria referred to this as a ‘genade van bo’ because the world here became overgrown with the progeny of the three little wattle trees!

Then came the Anglo-Boer War. In 1899 Oupa H J J Badenhorst, his wife Tante Alie and their daughter Johanna were living in their farmhouse, while Nicolaas and Hendrik, the two sons were on commando. The English were patrolling the koppie. They came to the Badenhorsts’ homestead, where Johanna was standing at the gate. An English officer stopped to pass the time of day. He told her how distasteful he found it having to wage war against people like her and he family. “You remind me of my sister”, he said. When they were recruited in England they had been led to believe they were to go out to Africa to fight wild, uncivilized people. At this point, Oom Hendrik Badenhorst bellowed from the stoep, “wat wil die Engelsman he?” and the man rode off.

The following day he was back with a pair of white gloves, which he wanted Johanna to accept as a token of friendship. Johanna would not take them. Shortly afterwards he was shot dead and the white gloves were found in his pocket.

Soon after this the Badenhorsts were ordered to leave their homestead and were given a house to live in Maraisburg, since they were suspected of providing the commandos with food. The last evening, Oom Hendrk, Tant Alie and old Petrus buried 300 gold sovereigns under an orange tree in the orchard. Petrus was left in charge of the homestead and the money. After a while, tant Alie was given permission to go to her farm for an afternoon to fetch some of her things. Petrus fetched her from Maraisburg with the wagon and oxen. They outspanned the wagon behind the homestead and began to load it with a few pieces of furniture.

At this point the English began to shoot at them from the top of AasvoelKop where there was a patrol of British soldiers. The bullets rained on the walls of the house, while Tant Alie and Petrus took shelter. The shooting cased after half-an-hour. They finished loading and returned to Maraisburg. One day a newspaper from England fell into their hands. In this they read about the Battle of Aasvoel Kop, which was said to have taken place near Johannesburg on the very date Tant Alie and Petrus fetched their belongings. The report said that the British had scored a victory and that a number of Boers had been killed in the battle! Subsequently the Badenhorsts were sent to the Concentration Camp at |Krugersdorp on the site of the present hospital.

After the war the Badenhorsts returned to their farm. They were among the few lucky ones. The sons returned home unscathed, their house had not been destroyed and Petrus had kept faithful watch over their gold sovereigns which were all still there!

It was after the war that the parents of the Weltevreden area met together and decided to establish a school. Oom Gert van der Linde was elected Chairman of the School Committee and he rode to Roodepoort and offered the post of school master to a Hollander called R. van Nazijk. The first little school building was down below today’s Madge Avenue – a derelict dwelling house with a mud floor, and here school began in 1903 with about twenty pupils and clumsy, homemade desks. It soon burnt down and they moved to a bigger house. The tuition was all in Hollands – in fact, Fairland School was the first school in the Transvaal where all teach was done entirely in Hollands, not as yet Afrikaans.

The people concerned in the establishment of the school were Tant Cilie Smit, the elderly widow of the late C J Smit; her son-in-law, Theunis Erasmus and his wife; Cornelis Smit; Gert van der Linde; Hendrik Badenhorst, Andres Kruger senior and junior and Arie Scheffer, who helped Oom Gert van der Linde make the school desks. The Weltevreden School became Fairland Government School in 1907.

Mrs Joe van Niekerk told me how her father, Melt Stander, could find no work after the Anglo-Boer War. In 1903 he was driving a hug steam truck for one-and-sixpence (15 cents!) per day. One day, while off-loading the coal he had conveyed from Maraisburg station to the Consolidated Main Reef mine, a Cornish mine-captain asked him “can you work with black men?” Melt said he could. “The stope is full of ore,” said the man. “Can you get them to empty it at three-and-sixpence a day?”

Melt at once accept the offer and within a few days the stope was empty. Then the mine-captain asked them, “Are there any more like you?” Oom Melt brought his brother-in-law, Oom Rudolph van den Heever, who also lived at the top of Willson Street and who was married to Betty Stander.

H.J.J. Baden horst passed away in 1904 and his farm Weltevreden was divided among his six daughters. Johanna and her husband, Melt Stander, built their homestead where Gigi Avenue runs today. Their daughter, Mrs Joe van Niekerk lived in it with her husband, till it was demolished and they built a new homestead “Oudag”, 25 Melanie Avenue, where they still live. Other farms forming part of Weltevreden were gradually sold by the other daughters and two sons. One was bought by the German, Mr G Herder. The homestead of his dairy farm still stands at the corner of Herder Avenue and D F Malan Drive, with the two big palms growing in front of it. We oldies remember so many farmhouses with two big palms! Mr Herder died not very long ago, in his late nineties. It was he who donated the stand for the erection of the Northcliff Union Church.

Another part of Weltevreden was sole to Sieling who grew flowers. His daughter, Lydia married the butcher Swanepoel from Linden. The Swanepoel family still live on the land enclosed by Weltevreden Road, Dawn Drive, Arkansas Avenue and Scott street and the original homestead may be seen there still.

At the time of the 1922 Strike, Joe Stander was eleven years old. She is now Mrs van Niekerk and is the daughter of Melt and Johanna, whom she remembers giving food to numbers of strikers that came to the homestead. Mr Cruywagen of Willson’s Estate, was also a striker. Mrs van Niekerk remembers an aeroplane coming down on Aasvoel Kop. The pilot stood beside it, unhurt. Mr Cruywagen rode towards the plane on his horse and the pilot shot his head off with a machinegun. Oom Melt Stander made the coffin and they buried the dead man the next day in the Fairland Cemetery, while a man with a flag stood on Fairland Koppie signalling to the police in semaphore that it was a funeral. Mrs van Niekerk remembers the planes flying so low over the mountain that one could see the men inside with their machine-guns. They were shooting at the strikers hiding among the rocks and the little Stone Age walls.

One day Joe and her sister were in the orchard when a plane flew very near to the house and there was shooting. Their mother called to them to come home and they did so in great haste. The school had been closed and they were very frightened. After this the strikers besieged sixty policemen in Fairland

School. Whenever a policeman tried to leave the building, he was shot by the strikers from the top of the koppie. Tant Johanna Stander kept baking great baskets full of bread and she then went Joe and her Brother Hendrik past the strikers to take the bread to the policy in the school, knowing the strikers would not shoot at children! So the Standers helped both the strikers and the police. To them they were all fellow-human beings in need and their political differences did not interest them.

The sanitary conditions in the school deteriorated and the water dried up in the well. Oom Melt Stander rode over to Roodepoort on the beautiful brown horse belonging to the local police sergeant, de Bruyn and he reported to the police there about the plight of the men in the school building. A plane was sent to fly low over the school, covering it while the police marched out of the building to Maraisburg. Melt was rewarded to his act of mercy by being arrested, together with seven other civilians from Fairland, and locked up for two weeks in Krugersdorp goal! There was such a fuss made about this miscarriage of justice that General Smuts got to hear about it and the men were released without the matter ever coming before the court. One of the victims, Michiel Smit, was only seventeen years old. All the time the men were in gaol, Johanna Stander and other Fairland women brought them provisions.

When I was a child Fairland was incredibly remote from Johannesburg. In fact I lived in Parkview and never heard of the existence of such a place until I married. My friend, Eileen Wessels was in residence at the Teachers’ Training College because she lived too far away to get home, except for the vacations! Only later did I realize that her home was in Fairland where the Speedy Plumbers are today. On passing out of Primary School, children had to attend High School as boarders at the Monument High in Krugersdorp. AT the end of the holidays they were taken by horse and cart of the sand road to Maraisburg station where they caught the train. While Joe van Niekerk was at Monument High, her Ouma Stander gave her a bottle of mulberry jam. She still possesses it – unopened and unspoilt! The likewise owns a large bottle watermelon konfyt given by the Ouma Badenhorst to her mother Johanna, just after the Anglo-Boer War.

The farm Waterfall belonged to Pupa Baden horst’s sister, Tant Sophia, who married Oom Hendrik Alberts. Out of this farm developed the townships Albertskroon, Albertsville, Newlands and Sophiatown, called after Tant Sophia. One day old C J Smit presented Oom Hendrik Alberts with several loads of manure. Oom Hendrk asked Mr Smit for permission to move some rocks out of the way so that he might transport the manure to his homestead behind the koppie. That was the beginning of the first road to Maraisburg!

Mrs van Niekerk’s brother, Hendrik, rode to Helpmekaar High School every day on his bicycle. There was also a girl who performed this feat every day. Joe’s grandfather, Hendrik Stander, was the son of Adriaan Stander, who was once outspanned on the site of what is now Standerton, when they were raided by a part of Basuto. Adriaan’s wife fled into the veld carrying her baby, little Hendrik. In the morning she saw horsemen approaching and ran off in a panic, thinking all was lost. They came nearer and she saw it was her husband and big sons. That happened on the 18th August. Baby Hendrik became the father of Melt Stander. Mrs van Niekerk tells me that her father never forgot the 18th August because of what had happened to his father on that day.

I visited a daughter of Hendrik Stander – Tant Betty van den Heever in her farm house in Willson Street above the school. She told me how the whole of this valley, from the koppies to Fairland Spruit at the bottom of Berario was one great vlei in her youth, always marshy and in the rainy season a torrent. My husband, Marais Louw, used to tell m this too. He was the son of Dr. Jan Louw, Huisvader of the Abraham Kriel Kinderhuis in Langlaagte. Every September he was sent to Fairland by Oom Jan to fetch flowers for the “Weeshuis se Feesdag” The flowers were an annual present from old Mrs Cronje, mother of Theuns Cronje, headmaster of Fairland School from 1922 to 1955. Marais travelled by horse and trap. He used to talk of the wide, marshy vlei that formed a great part of Fairland. The koppies are a catchment area and it is sad to think how indiscriminate building has affected this important ecological factor in a land where there usually is never enough water. There was a spring at the top of Willson Street, where today there is the big, white-gabled house belonging to the Papendor family. In the very early days three wagon whips tied together and pushed down that spring did not plumb its depths. Vandals, picnickers and campers for a hundred years have rolled stones into the opening and today it is blocked, though, praise be, the water still wells up through the rubble.

Ouma Stander, grand-daughter of Hans Dons, the Voortrekker leader, lived in this part of the world, near Cliffview School, and always celebrated Christmas with great gusto. At these parties, the men were always served first, then the women and the children last of all, sine there was no room even round that great table, for everyone to sit down at the same time. There was no such thing as a buffet meal – one sat down to eat at a properly laid table. Every woman brought a dish o something to help Ouma Stander in her entertaining. Her son Melt and his wife Johanna, brought so much, that they had to inspan their ox-wagon and come up from their homestead where Gigi Avenue is now, with everything piled on the wagon – food, children, the lot!

New Year’s Day was always spent by the entire population of Fairland in the kloof at the top of Willson Street. It was the most entrancingly beautiful spot before the fences went up. There was a white cliff, one of those which gave the Witwatersrand its name, and ground was covered with green grass like a lawn – obviously an ancient village with many of the little low stone walls, who we who are old now, knew so well. Even before the building of Northcliff began, people were carting these stones to Johannesburg and selling them to the builders.

A participant at these festivities, especially at Christmas time was Mr Richards who had the first shop at the corner of 14th Avenue and Kessel Street. He was a Scot – a fine man and well-liked. He would say “I’m coming whether you want me or not – I’m your brother.” Later there was a shop in what is now Blackheath. It belonged to Mr and Mrs Black and was on the present site of Blackheath Motors. The Standers used to drive there in their donkey-cart.

The first Post Office was in Mr Richards’ shop. Later Adrian Stander – descendant of the founder of Standerton, had it in a room built on to his stoep and later still, Piet Strydom had the Post office in his house in Davidson Street.

There are no historical buildings of any importance and there is no magistrate’s office. Some of the little old houses survive and a few of those should be preserved because of their cultural and social-historical interest. At the top of Norman Drive against the koppie, are some old pear trees, planted by Ouma Badenhorst about 1880. Quite near Cliffview school in Kessel Street, there is an interesting public park. It was laid out by Robert Willson in the design of a Union Jack, the trees being planted in diagonal rows to represent the various superimposed crosses of the flag. One can still recognize the design, though some of the trees have died and disappeared.

Ignatius Moecke, Afrikaans writer, lived for a while in Willson Street. There was an old German blacksmith and wagon-maker called Eberhard who lived where the old police-station was afterwards in Davidson Street. Mr Hannecke at the bottom of Willson Street near DF Malan Drive, was a piano tuner of all the many pianos and small organs that were in Fairland. In 1943 four brick kilns are mentioned as being in the Fairland area. The last one – in Davidson Street, disappeared not so long ago. That is all Fairland has ever offered in the way of industry.

The farms were all small, mixed farms, fruit flowers, vegetables for the Johannesburg Market. Old Mr Herder had a dairy; Mr Sieling grew flowers; Guido Faucigletti was an Italian who grew fruit in Willson Street between 11th and 8th avenue. Mr Hogeboezem owned what is now Berario and he was a dairy farmer. From 1918 to 1920 he was also a teach at the Fairland School and so was F C Erasmus, later Advocate Erasmus, Minister of Defence and also at one time South African Ambassador to Italy.

One could go on endlessly. As is the case with any community anywhere in the world, Fairland has grown out of the joys and sorrows and schemes and hopes of men and women, for that is the stuff of history!

Juliet Marais Louw

Facilities

Major shopping centres around Fairland include: Cresta Shopping Centre, Clearwater Shopping Centre, EL Corro Shopping Centre, WorldWear Shopping Centre, Trade Centre, Makro etc.

There are a number of schools in the area, namely Laerskool Fairland, and Cliffview Primary School.

Transportation

Johannesburg City Centre proximity (10 km) is within direct access to Beyers Naude drive. The N1 highway passes Fairland on the North-Westerly side with two offramps. 14th Avenue/ N1 and newly upgraded spaghetti offramp Beyers Naude/ N1.

References